The Little Known Secret Ingredient To Increase Conversions And Create Your Ads…

The Little Known Secret Ingredient To Increase Conversions And Create Your Ads…

I don’t want to spoil the surprise, but at the end of this I drop a bomb that’ll change how you run ads forever.

On this episode Russell talks about his experiences with Flip Hacking Live, his startup interview at the Dry Bar Comedy Club and why it’s important to get b-roll footage. Here are some of the awesome things he talks about in this episode:

What kind of mistakes he made at Justin and Tara Williams event, and what he would do differently.

Why if Russell could start over, he would be a specialist rather than a generalist.

And why it’s so important to have tons of b-roll footage when you are ready to launch your product.

So listen here to find out how Russell gets tons of b-roll footage, and why, in some ways, it’s better to be a specialist.

Full Episode Transcript

Hey, hey everybody, this is Russell Brunson. I want to welcome you to the Marketing Secrets podcast. It is a late night drive and I’m excited to be hanging out with you.

Hey everyone, I hope you guys are doing amazing today or tonight or whenever you’re listening to this. It is 11:00 at night and I am driving back to my house and I just want to recap the last couple of days of my life because they’ve been a little bit nuts-o, but exciting and hopefully there’s some cool lessons that will come for you guys from this.

So number one, last week I had a chance to go speak at Justin Williams Flip Hacking Live, which is very similar to Funnel Hacking Live, he may have funnel hacked me and then just changed it from Funnel to Flip. But I will allow him to do that because he’s awesome. So we did that, and then I had a chance to go speak to a whole bunch of real estate investors, which is a different audience, obviously all entrepreneurs I believe can use Clickfunnels. This is a group of people who had never done funnels at all.

It was interesting because I took my normal presentation and I tweaked it and modified it a lot to be better for them, but I still made some errors in what I did. Anyway, it was an interesting learning experience. We still sold well, but I definitely made some mistakes and learned some cool things that I would go back and….I think the biggest takeaway from that presentation and from speaking at that event that I think would be good for you guys is looking at how you position your teaching. Are you a generalist or are you a specialist?

You know, for me with Clickfunnels and my role in this whole game, I have to be a generalist. I’m teaching marketing and funnels for all types of businesses. There’s a lot of my friends who teach one funnel type; they teach just tripwire funnels, or just high ticket funnels, and they go deep on that and they love it. And I envy them because I’m like, “ah, if I could just do that.” Or they’re just teaching funnels for dentists, or just teaching funnels for chiropractors, like very specific with specialist. I’m jealous of that because first off, I think it’s easier because you can, it’s not theoretical, you can be like, “This is the actual funnel that works amazingly well. This is the one you should do, this is the ad you should run.”

To be a specialist you can charge more because of that. Whereas all my teaching has to be general, or “Here’s this concept, and here’s how you use it here, and here’s how you can use it here and here and here.” And it’s way harder.

In fact, I remember when I was starting my career, I remember listening to Dan Kennedy and somebody asked him one time like if was to start his career over again from scratch, what he would do different. And he was like, “You know, I’m a generalist, I’m teaching magnetic marketing to every type of business. If I was to start over, I would specialize in a certain type of business and focus there.” and I was like, “Whatever that’s dumb. I want to teach everybody because it’s the greatest thing in the world.” I should have headed that advice. I’m glad I didn’t because it’s probably, hopefully serving some of you guys. But man, it’s a lot harder to weave in 10 different markets into every presentation I do, and then each market has like 50 submarkets. Anyway, it’s intense.

But that was my cardinal sin I made at Justin and Tara’s event. I did niche it down to be more specific for them, but not enough. And I didn’t, Justin wanted to do a call with me ahead of time and I was like, “No, I got it dude. I’m good.” And I should have done a call because I would have understood, just kind of a better starting point.

So the lesson for you, if you’re going to sell to anybody, make sure you get on the phone with the promoter, the person who’s event it is, and pick their brain and really, really, really understand the customer and how to serve them. I’ve done that in the past and for some reason I got cocky and arrogant and didn’t do it this time, and I regret. I think I ended up closing between, we did a first session and then a re-pitch, about 20% of the room. I think I should have gotten closer to 30-40% had I have customized that presentation better and made it very, very specific like, “Okay, you guys as real estate investors, this is the exact funnel I would use.” As opposed to how I did it, which was kind of more general, “You could do this or you could do this or you could do this.” And trying to weave together things.

So there’s the rule, if you are a generalist and you’re speaking to a certain market, shift your message to becoming a specialist and you’ll do way better. If you’re picking a market right now, specialize. Okay, that’s number one.

So then when that event was done, then we jumped in a plane and we flew to Salt Lake, and then we drove down to Provo because we were putting on our own little show. And so I’m going to tell you what happened and then I’m going to tell you why we did it, because I think….in fact, it was funny, in our last inner circle meeting I was talking about how we’re doing this big event and I was like, “You know, one of my main roles is I want to get a whole bunch of b-roll of the cool location, cool interview. I want to get sound bites and sound clips and all sorts of stuff, I’m going to look for more b-roll.”

Then Brian Burt, who is a super cool guy at our inner circle, he was like, “Russell you have the most epic b-roll on planet earth, the last thing you need in your world is more b-roll.” Yet we spent 100 grand, I don’t know how much we spent on this event, with the sole purpose of getting more b-roll. So that should be a lesson for all you guys.

What we did is we rented out this place called the Dry Bar Comedy Club in Provo. It’s a bar, but it’s a dry bar so there’s no alcohol. But it looks really, the location is amazing. There’s different sets you can do, there’s the stage and the light, and the ambiance, and it just looks insanely cool. So I saw, in fact the back story, the Harmon Brothers, some of the other Harmon brothers that own a company called Vid Angel, if you don’t know what that is, it’s an app on your Roku that will edit videos for you, so it makes rated R movies PG and stuff and it’s awesome.

But then they got in a big fight with Disney and all these people, and a big legal battle. So during the legal battle instead of editing movies, they started streaming their own content at the Dry Bar Comedy Club, which was comedians who had to do clean comedy, which was awesome. So we were watching all this comedy and what was cool is we started seeing these sets, and I was like, “That’s such a cool location, I want to an event somewhere like that.” So that’s thought number one in my head.

Then I was listening to Andrew Warner, who he wrote the Mixergy podcast and he’s the most fascinating interviewer you will ever meet. If you don’t listen to Mixergy podcast, go listen to it for the sole purpose of listening to how Andrew interviews people. So cool.

And I’m listening to one of his interviews, and he normally does it in his studio, on set. And this one time he was interviewing this one entrepreneur at a camp around a camp fire, and he did this whole interview around a camp fire. And I was like, “Oh, I want to be interviewed around a camp fire, telling the Clickfunnels startup story, that would be so cool.” And I was like, “Wait a minute, what if we did it at the Dry Bar Comedy Club?” and then it became a thing, I messaged Andrew and the next thing we know, six weeks later we’re at the Dry Bar Comedy Club.

Then I’m like, “How do we get people there, we gotta make it fun.” So then I was like, “What if we had JP Sears come and do comedy at it?” So messaged JP and I’m like, “What would it take for you to just make fun of me for 30 minutes before this interview so it kind of loosens up the crowd?” Because it’s like, I don’t know, I thought it would be good because sometimes interviews are tough if someone’s having success because you’re like, “Oh screw that person. They’re having tons of success.” So I was like, “It would be more fun if people make fun of me for a while, then it’s like,” I don’t know, with people, it’s the whole reason why we share our back story, and share the vulnerable moments, because if you’re vulnerable with people and share the times that you struggled, and you’ve had the big losses, then when you have the wins people celebrate with you as opposed to like, being annoyed with you.

So I was like, let’s make fun of me, so that way people will be more likely to have a vested interest in my journey and be interested in this whole Clickfunnels start up story. So luckily JP said yes, so when all was said and done, we had JP come on and make fun of me for like 30 minutes, then he did some of his stand up comedy for the next 15-20 minutes, which was awesome. And then we came up onstage and Andrew interviewed me for 2 hours about the Clickfunnels start up story. It was amazing, and I’m sure someday we’ll release the footage of it.

But we got tons of b-roll and there’s so many sound bites and clips, it was just super, super awesome. So I wanted to kind of share that with you guys because of all the ordeal we went through to be able to get the b-roll.

So think about that, if you guys are creating content, like you sitting and podcasting is good, but getting the b-roll is even more important. And I’m going to caveat, share more of that here in a few minutes because it kind of goes to the next level.

So that was the Dry Bar Comedy club, we had a great time, it was a really special evening, I loved it. And I think it was helpful for people and for me it meant a lot. Andrew did an amazing job, JP did an amazing job, my whole team did an amazing job putting it together, and it was awesome.

So then we flew home, Sunday I got home. And then what’s crazy, tomorrow is Wednesday and I’m flying to Arizona to go and speak for two days on the Traffic Secrets book, which is a book I haven’t written yet. But I had all day Monday and Tuesday to sit down in front of, with my brain and a huge, white pad of paper and start doodling out all the sketches to teach all the core concepts I’ve been thinking about for the last year to put inside Expert Secrets. And Doodling and putting them in the right order, organizing and reorganizing them.

I was up all day Monday doing it. And then I went in at 9:00 at night and I was still stressing out, and still working on it. And then Stephen Larsen messaged me and I was like, “What would it take for you to come into the office?” So he came into the office and we were there and then I was instagraming me and Stephen in there like mapping out things and having so much fun. And then Dave was about to go to bed at night, and he went and checked Insta-stories and saw me and Stephen there so he jumped in his car, jumped out of bed, put his clothes on and drove over to the office and we’re all sitting there brainstorming and up til, being there until 2:00 in the morning, which is lame because I had to lift weights at 5:30. So I had 3 hours of sleep last night, which reminds me of why I’m so tired right now.

I digress, so I’m telling you this because I spent two days, got all the doodles done and tomorrow I’m flying out to go present these at a live event, partially because I’m looking for b-roll footage at the live event to be able to use in the promotional video of the book someday. And then one of the guys who works with us doing video stuff, his name is Blake, he was in town and he saw the insta-stories and he’s like, “Oh, I wish would have known, I would have come last night and filmed all the b-roll of you guys mapping this stuff out.” And I was like, “What if we did it tonight.” And he was like, “Yes.”

So where I’m coming home from right now, we were back at the office and we spent two hours just filming b-roll of everything we did yesterday. Literally, me re-drawing out the drawings I did, me re-laying out the drawings, me walking around doing stuff, Blake taking videos from inside the office, outside the office, walking into the office, as many different spots and different places. And we spent two full hours just capturing b-roll to be able to use in a promotional video that we do in two years from now when we start selling the book.

So why am I sharing this with you guys? Because most of us aren’t looking at this as the art that it is. I can have a video of me saying, “Hey my new book Traffic Secrets came out, you should read it, it’s awesome.” Or I could capture the process of creating this thing and showing what happened behind the scenes and how it worked and what we had to go through and the pain and me up all night doodling and sketching these things out and laying out all over the whole floor, all these huge pads of paper. And then going to an event and onstage teaching it and explaining to people and trying to help them understand it. And then sitting down and actually write it.

And you actually get footage of you creating this thing, documenting yourself, documenting the journey. Then someday when you have the sales video to sell the thing, you have all this magic you can go back and use.

So I want just want to put it out there for you guys to start thinking about. As you’re doing cool stuff, don’t just capture you making the content, capture you capturing the content. Get the b-roll, get somebody to, as you’re writing your book, “Hey, can you get the video camera and like get some shots of me writing this book. Get some shots of me working on my perfect webinar. Get some shots of me at the gym losing weight because I’m going to teach people to lose weight.”

All those things, they matter and they matter a lot. If you notice most of the videos we put out nowadays, it’s like 98% b-roll and there’s a voice over storyline talking about something, but the b-roll is what’s sucking you in the video and hooking you in. Pulling you from step one to step two, step three, step four, pulling you through the whole process.

Anyway, those are the fun things. We spent probably more time, 3 or 4 times more on the b-roll than we do on the video or the initial thing we’re shooting, you know what I mean. So think about that. So that’s all I got.

I know this was kind of a random episode. We talked about Flip Hacking Live, Justin and Tara’s event, the difference between being a specialist and a generalist, and if you are a generalist and you’re speaking to a market, to flip into specialist mode and change your message because you’ll sell more and you’ll serve more, and if you’re choosing between a generalist and a specialist, become a specialist. Don’t become the next Russell Brunson, Funnel Builder. The next Dan Kennedy, marketing guy. Become the funnel builder for whatever market, you know what I mean? Become a specialist.

Then we shifted over into the Dry Bar Comedy Club, JP Sears, Andrew Warner and then all the stuff we did tonight. And the emphasis on capturing the b-roll, capturing the story. We talked about documenting the journey and you’re doing that through podcasts and things like that, but man if you can get your camera out and film different pieces, even just getting your phone out and filming you doing different pieces, that stuff will be valuable someday. I promise you that.

I look back now that my kids are, my twins are turning 13 years old now. We didn’t film, we didn’t capture much stuff of them because we didn’t have cameras back then and it wasn’t as easy. And I look now and I have tons of footage of Norah and Aiden and stuff, but the earlier kids we have hardly any footage, and ugh, sick to my stomach. I’m so grateful now that we’re capturing all this b-roll of everything we’re doing because we can go back into the archives and in 8 months from now when the book launches, and be like, “Here’s all the footage of when Russell was actually writing the book.”

How cool is it to have all that? And how many ways can we use that in the promotional videos and ads and other things, you know. If you’re launching your funnel and the last phase is you creating your sales video and you’re like, “What should we do for ads? Let’s think about an ad.” Then you’re missing the point. You’re missing the magic.

The magic is while you’re creating this thing, you should be documenting every single piece of that, because that becomes your ad, that becomes the b-roll for the sales video, that becomes the storyline for all the things you’re doing.

So I hope that helps. I’m going to go get some sleep because I have not slept enough, which you can probably tell. Some days my podcast is probably all over the place, on the days I haven’t slept, which sounds like it might be today. So I apologize for that. Hopefully you got some value from this, appreciate you guys, thanks for listening. If you did get value, please take a snap shot on your phone right now, go over to Facebook or Instagram, tag me so I can see it and also hashtag Marketing Secrets, which would be really cool. I appreciate that. And with that said, thanks so much and I’ll talk to you guys tomorrow.

Who is Russell Brunson?

Over the past 10 years, Russell has built a following of over a million entrepreneurs, sold hundreds of thousands of copies of his books, popularized the concept of sales funnels, and co-founded a software company called ClickFunnels that helps tens of thousands of entrepreneurs quickly get their message out to the marketplace.